1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to in-flight entertainment systems and control units therefor, and more particularly, to controllers that dock to individual passenger seat armrests.
2. Related Art
Air travel typically involves journeys over extended distances that at the very least take several hours to complete. Some of the longer non-stop international flights have scheduled durations of over sixteen hours with travel distances extending beyond ten thousand miles. Passengers on board the aircraft are confined within an enclosed space of a designated seat for the entire duration of the flight, with only a few limited opportunities to leave the seat for use of the lavatory and so forth. Thus, even on the shortest trips the passenger has some idle time, which the traveler may occupy with work, leisure, and/or rest.
Many passengers bring their own personal electronic devices such as smart phones, media players, electronic readers, tablets, laptop computers, and the like for the express purpose of keeping occupied. However, airlines also accommodate its customers with in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems. Although the specific installation may vary depending on the service class, each passenger seat is equipped with a display device, an audio output modality, an input modality, and a terminal unit. The display device is typically an LCD screen that is installed on the seatback of the row in front of the passenger, though in some cases it may be mounted to a retractable arm that is in turn mounted to the passenger's seat. The audio output modality is a headphone jack, to which a headphone, supplied either by the airline or by the passenger, may be connected. The terminal unit may generate the video and/or audio signals that are presented to the passenger via the aforementioned display device and audio output modality.
A wide variety of multimedia content can be made available to passengers with the IFE system. Recently released movies are a popular viewing choice, as are television shows such as news programs, situation as well as stand-up comedy shows, documentaries, and so on. Useful information about the destination such as airport disembarking procedures, immigration and custom procedures and the like are also frequently presented. Audio-only programming is also available, typically comprised of playlists of songs fitting into a common theme or genre. Likewise, video-only content such as flight progress mapping, flight status displays, feeds from cameras mounted to the exterior of the aircraft, and so forth are available. The pre-recorded multimedia content is typically stored on an onboard central server, and streamed to the individual terminal units upon request over a local area network. The central server may also generate the display outputs for the aforementioned live video-only content based on the underlying data of the raw camera feed, flight status, etc.
The terminal unit may include a general-purpose data processor that can be programmed with instructions corresponding to one or more interactive software applications that communicates with the central server to retrieve the multimedia content, render the video and/or audio, and accept inputs from the passenger for selections for viewing/listening. The interactive applications thus implement a graphical user interface with which the user can navigate the multimedia content library that is stored on the central server.
The inputs are provided via a control unit, which, like the aforementioned display device, are individual to each passenger. The control unit is connected to the terminal unit, and can be removably mounted on the seatback of the row in front of the passenger or on one of the armrests of the passenger seat. A basic embodiment may include a few input buttons corresponding to up, down, left, and right inputs, for navigating between graphical user interface elements, as well as another button that corresponds to an enter, select, confirm, or other similar command. Earlier IFE systems that were based upon continuously looped “channels” of programming, and not on the more recent individual, in-demand selection of programming did not require the navigation of a graphical user interface, so the control units included channel increment/decrement buttons. Along these lines, volume increase/decrease buttons are also incorporated into the control units. Other onboard amenities such as overhead lights and flight attendant calling can also be operated with the control units, and thus include input buttons therefor.
Many in-flight entertainment systems also include video games that may be played by the passenger. The games may likewise be implemented as a series of pre-programmed instructions executed by the terminal unit. Interaction with such game software may be possible with the same control unit, with the aforementioned directional inputs being utilized therefor. The control unit may have additional buttons for different inputs to the game software (e.g., A, B, X, Y buttons).
Control units generally correspond to the available feature set of the deployed terminal units and the IFE system. As the data processing capabilities thereof have increased along with an expansion of functionality, existing control units have become outdated. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for enhanced control units that accommodate all of the input requirements of the latest IFE systems.